More Reports That Roku's Netflix Player Will Add Additional Content Providers

The company, in which Los Gatos, Calif.-based Netflix owns a minority stake, says it sold out its first shipment in three weeks. To keep up with demand, Roku has ramped up production in its factory in Asia and is air-freighting units to the U.S., says Tim Twerdahl, Roku's vice president of consumer products.

Twerdahl wouldn't disclose sales figures, but he says Roku calculated initial shipments based on sales of competing digital delivery products such as Apple TV and Vudu. Twerdahl also says the Roku player won't be limited to Netflix. Later this year, a simple software update will allow the box to stream content from other "big name" providers.

Adding Hulu programming could enable a lot of people to cancel cable TV, which is much more expensive than the $99 Roku box and the $8.99 Netflix plan with unlimited Watch Instantly.

Comments

Warning to potential buyers: The Roku box has poor quality sound when using a Wifi connection. For proof, visit the Roku forums themself, but let me just say that I have been very disappointed with the box because when watching TV or movies, the sound constantly pops. Many other Roku users have confirmed this to be due to the Wifi connection, and Roku has refused to fix the obvious problem thus far.

Hold on to your money if you are only able to use a wireless connection for the box.

I used mine for the first few days with a wired connection and then for the past week with a WiFi connection. I've had no problems with the audio. There was also no difference in the quality of the video or audio between the two type of connection.

I had a lot of trouble with our Roku and wifi until I bought a NetGear router (to replace our old Belkin -- I've since learned that MANY Belkin routers are not working very well with the Roku Netflix Player, so if you've got a Belkin, consider yourself warned!).

Since changing routers, we've had no problems at all. We consistently get the highest resolution for the video and have never had any sound problems whatsoever. It's been GREAT. I love this device!

My concern about Roku adding additional services, by the way, is that they can't possibly be making all that much money off this. Neither can Netflix. I wonder if they will start charging an additional subscription fee for the Roku NP? And whether or not those of us who bought early will be grandfathered in or suddenly find ourselves unable to use our Roku Players without paying more? I'm guessing the latter! I'm also wondering how Netflix will react when everybody starts lowering their Netflix subscriptions to the cheapest available that still has unlimited Watch Instantly. We're on the 4-out plan but we haven't watched a single DVD since we got our Roku and it would be dumb for us to keep paying that much. I have a feeling it won't be long before Netflix starts to LOSE money because of the Roku NP, and I'm wondering what their plan for dealing with that is going to be?

That's somewhat unrealistic that the Roku box will start charging customers to use it with Netflix after Netflix is advertising it as unlimited, no additional charge, does not change the price, etc etc...

Plus, there ARE such things as contracts. Wouldn't you think that before companies invest large sums of money, that they actually think through these, "What if" situations, and make legal decisions based off of them.

Netflix takes care of its customers and its employees. Plain and simple.

I've never considered myself an early-adopter on any product before. I'm not sure to count myself lucky to be in on the first shipment product either. But, I have to say that my Roku box does deliver the goods. I wasn't sure I wanted to buy the thing since my previous attempts to Watch Now with the Netflix browser plugin to be such a failure. The Roku box rocks. I'm just praying that Comcast doesn't IP Profile filter me to death.

I don't mind flakey wifi (and I consider all wifi to be flakey) when I'm surfing webpages but if you're counting on your data packets to arrive on time (latency) for some critical application like voice data (VoIP) or streaming video I'd consider hardwire to be the only choice.

I could care less about watching youTube, hulu and the other ilk trying to deliver video. It's all about quality and they suck at it.

If you're using a 802.11b wifi router (the original flavor), it may be slower than your broadband Internet connection, especially if you have a high-speed connection or the wireless band is crowded with baby monitors or cordless phones.

802.11g wireless access points are down to as low as $25, I'd recommend buying one if you're trying to watch video over an older wifi device.

Also, I think even with only $9 a month, Netflix is probably making a profit on Watch Instantly. And the Roku box can't be that expensive to manufacture -- and open source software is not too expensive either.

Why go wireless? Ethernet cable is cheap if you shop online, and it's not too hard to run cable across your home. I'm in an apartment, and I still managed to get everything connected via ethernet.

I have a WiFi gateway, but I'd much rather have the more reliable direct cable connection than trust to WiFi for streaming video. I'm not saying WiFi is a bad idea-- Just that wired is *always* going to be faster, better and more reliable than wireless. It's also easier to set up.

I *always* get 4 dots/top quality from my Netflix Player, and I'm on 5MB DSL which is also serving two computers and an Xbox at any given time.

I love the Netflix Player by Roku. I don't even bother with paying for cable television now. Between Netflix and what I can find on YouTube, major TV network websites, and Hulu, I've got all the entertainment I need without ever needing to see a commercial or conform to a TV schedule.

"That's somewhat unrealistic that the Roku box will start charging customers to use it with Netflix after Netflix is advertising it as unlimited, no additional charge, does not change the price, etc etc..."

It's not actually Roku I'm thinking may charge more fees for Netflix use -- it's Netflix that may go that route, especially if all their customers start dropping down to the lowest subscription plan that still offers unlimited Watch Now. But if Roku starts adding additional vendors -- Hulu, e.g. -- I wouldn't be surprised if you have to pay a fee for those.

It doesn't cost Netflix much to offer Watch Now stuff -- UNTIL their customers start watching more Watch Now than they do DVDs. After all, I can't really justify the 4-out plan at the moment when I could go down to 2-out and still use my Roku as much as I want. I've got 175 things in my Watch Now queue -- that'll keep me pretty busy for a while! Which means Netflix is about to lose a big chunk of change from me personally each month. And I'm sure I'm not alone.

Do I think this is going to take them by surprise? Nope. That's my whole point, actually. I wouldn't be surprised if the plan all along has been to offer this for free for a while (to get people to start using it and be excited about using it), and then to charge more for it later.

I have no idea what "contract" you're talking about, comeondave, but I'm pretty sure Netflix doesn't have any customer contracts that say they will never raise their rates! It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out over the course of the next year or so.

Netflix WANTS you to use Watch Now over DVDs. Right now it costs them a pretty penny for the cost of postage, mailing envelopes, and maintaining the mailing centers. For 8.95 you would get 1 DVD and all the Watch Now. My guess is to get a bunch of people using Watch Now, be able to have enough market saturation of hardware, and be able to put some pressure on studios to buy into Netflix's Watch Now. Then they could offer a pure Watch Now service for $10 or so, with a possible premium of a dollar or two on new releases.

@Meg
Getting people to downgrade their DVD usage is exactly what Netflix wants. They are banking more money with customers on the $8.99 plan that rarely use physical DVDs than they are with people actively using a 4-out plan. Shipping, labor, material costs, etc. It's much cheaper to kick the studio/distributor some change everytime someone watches their movie than do all those other things.

This would make a lot of sense. Having only one provider for an internet enabled device seems short sighted. If they put NFL and NBA games on here, I'll buy one in a second. (As it stands now, I'd need to buy a $50/month cable package just to watch the NBA, so I don't.)

Sporting events should be free because they are so full of commercials by their nature. However, a service like Hulu should offer commercials as an option. Either you agree to be interrupted by ads, or you pay a small fee to get just the shows.

"Getting people to downgrade their DVD usage is exactly what Netflix wants."

You say that as if it's a bad thing if they get what they want. What I want is plenty of movies to choose from, without scratched or damaged discs, and no wait for it to be delivered by mail. Win/win!!!!

At least... it will be win/win after they add a lot more titles to the instant selection.

If NetFlix went entirely disc-free it wouldn't bother me in the least. The Roku box is the first step toward what I always imagined TV would evolve into. Bring it on.

I've disconnected my cable earlier this year and have lately been watching Netflix on my computer. I also subscribed to Game Rewind from nfl.com and will also look to get NBA League Pass Broadband. I almost bought a computer for my entertainment system so I can watch all this content commercial free when I came across the Roku video player (definitely more affordable than another computer). I'm just hoping that they will open up access to online NFL and NBA accounts before the seasons start.

Nobody mentioned that the Watch Now list is pretty limited in selections... I use it almost every day, but I'm not giving up my 4x plan until the Watch Now has a LOT more to choose from. It's been over a year now, and still no HULU, just sports cra#. (Hey Netflix - FYI: tot:num"SPORTSNUTS" < .1*tot:num"GEEKS" )

Jimmy A - you can't expect a dialup connection to actually work - the ad DOES say you need broadband access, doesn't it?